Peter Belanger

Now that I’m using the Phase One P65+ I’ve noticed that my non digital 150 isn’t as sharp as it once was. I was using the Schneider APO-Symmar L lens 150/5.6. I’ve upgraded that to the Schneider APO-Digitar M lens 120/5.6.

I did a very quick test on a flat surface. The digital lens does much better with sharpens and retaining detail in the highlights. I photographed at f-16 rather than the optimal f-8 or f-11. I wanted to test the lens how I would be using it, which is mostly f-16 – f-22.

Here are some photos from a recent editorial photo shoot. I’m always happy when I get to incorporate my Profoto 8 ft. reflector.

I’ve posted the Macworld cover time lapse video on YouTube. It’s the same video just another avenue for viewing. The main difference is you can now watch the video from any mobile phone that supports YouTube, such as the iPhone.

I’ve posted before about finding time to photograph casually. Well when I’m on vacation I have a similar problem. My kids are still at that stage were they need my attention every waking hour. I’ve been working  better at taking a second here and there to shoot things as I’m out and about with the kids. Here are a couple photos I took from my recent trip. Unlike my last post I kept my camera gear to a minimum. This time I only took the Canon 1Ds MarkIII with a 24mm-70mm lens. It worked well for most of the situations.

After working on the latest cover for Macworld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a small amount of time. The only drawback of time lapse is that since half a day goes by in 30 seconds, the  whole process seam so easy! Lots of details were left out of the design process (like the cover meetings and rounds of layout options). I began to photograph the design process after the layouts had already been narrowed down to just three cover designs.

On the technical side, for the time lapse video, I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm-70mm zoom. I chose the 5D because of its great image quality with high ISO’s. Canon’s sRAW1 gave me the flexibility of a RAW file with the file size of a jpeg.  The actual Macworld cover was taken with a Phase One P65+ digital back attached to a 4×5 Sinar X camera with a 65mm lens. 

Many thanks to Rob Schultz for allowing me to invade his office and literally shoot over his shoulder.

The music was used with permission by The Brokenmusicbox. You can see more of their music at http://www.myspace.com/tbmb

The air conditioner for the server room was finally installed today. It may not look like much, but it’s going to make everyone happy. For those of you that have been in my studio, you know the servers made a lot of noise—I had to keep the door off the room because the servers were so hot. Thanks to the air conditioning, the door could be reinstalled. What a difference! Now it is nice and quiet in the studio.

Before I had kids I would take time to go out and photograph for myself. The joy of this was I had lots of time and no pressure. Now that I have kids, it’s really hard to find the time to shoot for myself. I see lots of things that I want to stop and photograph but with kids, I have other agendas. The other day, we were at a fair and I wanted to spend the time walking around photographing but I had to be a dad and enjoy the rides with my kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rides! We found one roller coaster with no lines and no adults allowed so the kids rode it over and over again. This gave me about 15 minutes to photograph the things right in front of me. It wasn’t what I was hoping for but I was still happy with the results.

In the past, when a job was completed, the film was stored in an archival filing cabinet. With digital it’s not that easy. Years ago I converted my darkroom into a server room. The room has grown from a simple place to hold hard drives to holding servers for FTP, stock sales, web hosting, FileMaker server and photo archiving. As the room grows, so does the heat output. It’s now producing so much heat and noise that I need to get an AC unit to cool things down. I have an air conditioning unit on order with a local vender. Hopefully I can get it installed next week.

The art of packing for location. I try and pack everything very efficiently so it all fits inside my minivan. Everything then needs to fit on two carts no wider than a standard office door. Clients are always amazed at how much I can fit.

When I travel, I am often compelled to photograph unique buildings or structures. Sometimes they speak to me with a strong American style, other times I just see an aesthetic or composition that appeals to me. The places are full of history. The photos below were taken in Charleston, South Carolina. It was so hot and humid I had to drive with the air conditioning off. If I didn’t the camera lens and the P65+ digital back would fog up as soon as I stepped outside into the hot air.